With the Artie awards approaching, a look back at a memorable season for actresses

This week, you could see Moira Keenan give a wonderfully compelling performance as a successful author who goes undercover as a waitress and cleaning lady to expose the realities of the working poor in Nickel & Dimed. You could see Marie Costa, a welcome addition to the ranks of Buffalo’s leading ladies, as Serafina, the proud Sicilian widow who must come to terms with her beloved husband’s death and his infidelity in Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo. You could see Lisa Ludwig as a Nazi bureaucrat and art connoisseur who goes toe to toe with John Fredo’s Picasso in A Picasso. Lisa Vitrano and Bonnie Jean Taylor are both terrific, and can be seen this week, playing flawed people pushed beyond the edge in Eric Bogosian’s Humpty Dumpty.

Moira Keenan and Arianna Boykins in Subversive Theatre’s Nickel & Dimed.

The theme emerging here is excellent roles for women and excellent actresses to play those roles. The performances range across genres and theater companies. Nickel & Dimed is didactic comedy at Subversive Theatre Collective. The Rose Tattoo is modernist comedy from The American Repertory Theater of WNY. A Picasso is a comedy with serious overtones at the Kavinoky. Humpty Dumpty is tragicomedy from Road Less Traveled.

As the Artvoice Artie Awards approach, members of the Buffalo theater community engage in an unofficial build up to the June 2 event. Wardrobe is shopped for; celebrations are arranged; theaters pitch the red ribbons, whereby audiences are invited to contribute a dollar to Benedict House, a facility that provides care for individuals with HIV/AIDS in our own community. But the unofficial main event is surely speculation on who will be nominated, in anticipation of the official announcement in Artvoice on May 22. This year, a great deal of interest is centered on the unusually large number of excellent roles for women.

Consider a show like Kindertransport, a Jewish Repertory Theatre of WNY production. In that show alone, adult actress Anne Roaldi gave a remarkable performance as a child; Lisa Ludwig gave what was, possibly, the finest dramatic performance of her career so far, as the mother who gives up her child in order to save her life; Rebecca Elkin played the daughter of the next generation with Eileen Dugan as the grown child. Toss in the formidable Anne Gayley, and that show alone could dominate the dramatic categories for women. That’s unlikely, however, for the pickings this year have been lush.

Even just among the women in Kindertransport, it is easy to identify a number of other excellent performances this season, each worthy of Artie consideration. The show would, for example, prove to be a minor bump in Eileen Dugan’s resume; she just finished a wonderfully complex and powerful turn as the Mormon mother of a gay suicide in Facing East; she was excellent as the daughter in On Golden Pond; she gave a terrific comic performance in Kavinoky’s popular Glorious; was marvelously moving as Desdemona’s confidante in Othello—and, oh yes, she starred in To Kill a Mockingbird at Studio Arena Theatre. In addition to A Picasso (in which she is leading) and Kindertransport (in which she is supporting), Ludwig starred in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love at the New Phoenix, and gave a number of musical performances as well. Roaldi starred in The Secret Garden, and actually got to play a grownup with a strong supporting role in The School for Scandal, with the Irish Classical Theatre Company. Rebecca Elkin hit the ground running last year, chalking up a credible Desdemona in Othello for Shakespeare in Delaware Park, and giving an indelibly memorable turn as the spoiled girl with a family problem, who teaches us the healing power of jewelry in Douglas Carter Beane’s The Little Dog Laughed. Elkin held her own in a show that also boasted Caitlin Coleman’s amazing (and entirely nominatable) performance as Diane who solves problems—a.k.a., the Hollywood agent from hell; luckily, Elkin was supporting while Coleman was leading, but in such a crowded field, that does not guarantee either the nomination, even for sensational work in a well-received production.

Some stunning performances that have lingered in the memory of those who saw them include Kelly Meg Brennan’s angst-ridden turn as the title character in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant for Torn Space; Katie White’s profound and articulate rendering of the title character in My Name Is Rachel Corrie; Mary Kate O’Connell’s irrepressible and entirely unmusical portrayal of Florence Foster Jenkins in Glorious at the Kavinoky; Katie Hart as Pope Joan for Rare Birds Theater Group; Bonnie Jean Taylor and Sue Toomey in Eric Appleton’s Homeland for Road Less Traveled; Leah Russo in The School for Scandal. And don’t forget Maureen Porter and Nan Wade’s moving, yet comical takes on two A.R. Gurney prototypes in Crazy Mary.

Among supporting actresses, there was Sacha Shaffer in the eerie and disturbing Pillowman at the New Phoenix; Joyce Carolyn as the nurse with a wry sense of the absurd in Crazy Mary; Kelli Bocock-Natale with a hilarious performance as the self-deluded Mrs. Candour in The School for Scandal, and Josephine Hogan as nasty Lady Sneerwell in the same production. Verneice Turner gave a very solid performance as Calpurnia, the narrative voice of wisdom in To Kill a Mockingbird; and Victoria Perez nearly stole the show as the sharp-tongued Mexican maid in Glorious.

Other actresses dread having Anne Gayley in their category. This year, the multiple Artie winner appeared as a leading actress in On Golden Pond, and as a supporting actress in Glorious. Each portrayal was well-contoured and memorable.

Supporting roles were so lavishly populated that it will, in some instances, be difficult for the Artie voters to keep track. Consider The Rose Tattoo, which, in addition to Miss Costa, featured joyful scene work in supporting roles by Joy Scime as the comically all-knowing friend, Candace Lukasik, Carol J. Alaimo, Alaina Renee Miller, Diane M Cammarata, Kerrykate Abel, Kelly Ferguson Moore, Diane Serra—and, of course, Jeanne Cairns and Mary Loftus as a comic pair of spiteful gals, out for a good time. With so many new names on the roster, it takes a program and a script to keep track of who played what! (A factor that diminishes the likelihood of a nomination, by the way). Also from the American Repertory Theater of WNY, When Ya Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? featured fine performances by Linda Stein as the silent wife with a strong moral sense and talent for music, Heather Violanti as the waitress who yearns for love and is unlikely to receive it, and Emily Littler and the unwitting moll of a psychopath.

Subversive Theatre Collective hands the voters a similar challenge with excellent large cast productions of Nickel & Dimed and of Waiting for Lefty. In the former, we are seeing fine work by Kelly M. Beuth, Jennifer Fitzery, Jennifer Linch, Jessica Stuber, and Arianna Boykins. In the latter, we saw excellent work from Sarah Brown and Jennifer Linch, as well Kate LoConti. Bonegrinders, produced by Road Less Traveled, pulled talent from an overlapping pool, with LoConti, Linch, and Boykins again in the mix.

Torn Space tosses unique challenges to its actors. Artie voters may choose to honor Dechen Dolkar or Kelly Meg Brennan for unusual and demanding work in Stivale. Miss Brennan, for instance, must appear frozen, eyes open, in front of a bank of florescent lights before singing an aria. Dokar carries us through a meandering narrative in various states of dress and undress.

Theatre Plus, the women’s theater division of Alleyway, provided some appropriately fine roles for women. Frank Canino’s The Angelina Project boasted a cast that starred Maggie R. Zindle, with impressive supporting performances by Kelly Beuth, Joy Scime, Megan Townsend, Annette Daniels Taylor, Kate Olena, and Katie White. Alleyway’s short works festival, The Buffalo Quickies, also offers many opportunities for newcomers, or for seasoned pros to strut their stuff in a new light. This year, the festival featured the talents of Tammy Reger, Louise Reger, Pamela Rose Mangus, Stephanie Bax, and Shannon Speaker. Mangus, Bax, and Speaker were especially memorable as three housewives devoid of social worth in “Sexual Perversity in Connecticut,” a modern comedy of ill-manners. While very small roles rarely get Artie attention, Reger was memorable as a barnyard animal who makes a realization of biblical proportion in the tale of the prodigal son, told from the perspective of the fatted calf.

O’Connell & Company, the theater that brought us Diva by Diva, delighted its mostly female audience with a production of Steel Magnolias, featuring some of Buffalo’s best acting talent: Stephanie Bax, Pamela Rose Mangus, Dolores Mendolia, Michele Marie Roberts, Jennifer Toomey Starr, and Tess Spangler as the familiar crew of southern ladies in a beauty salon.

We have entered a period characterized by the proliferation of small theater companies in Buffalo. This season saw Buzz and The Orangutan-man Knocks at Midnight, “an ALT Theater presentation of a Theatre Helden Production” of two one-act plays, with good performances by several newcomers. Add this to everything at the American Repertory Theater of WNY, or in the back room at Rust Belt Books. We haven’t even discussed the chamber theater readings at Playhouse of American Classics.

As if to show off the available female talent in its company, the Paul Robeson Theatre has brought back its every popular production of Steal Away. As a revival, anyone reprising a performance is not Artie eligible, but there is sure to be plenty to delight audiences among the talents of Cynthia Maxwell (who’s been in the show all three times the Robeson has done it), Renita Shadwick, June L. Saunders Duell, Beverly Crowell, Catherine Horton, Valencia Chase-Hill, and Candace Whitfield. Whether any gets Artie approval is, at this point, anybody’s guess.

In addition to the excellence of the work, it is the role itself that determines an Artie nod. Vivid performances in vivid roles is always the ticket. Such roles and such performances have been plentiful this year. While many may think they can predict the nominations, the total roster of nominees and the outcome are always a big surprise.